Being Humane: Back to Basic

Being Humane – Back to Basic: Continuous evolution is the law of nature. Life on this earth commenced almost 3.85 billions year ago and during evolution human species was created by the nature around 200,000 years ago. Nature has given highly developed brain, intellect, consciousness and an evolved mind to human beings. We can do something that all other species present on this planet cannot do.

From the available resources on this earth human mind made tremendous progress and created this modern world. With technological advancements he made it possible to create comfort and luxuries for him. During this process of advancement, he also promoted various religions, institutions, languages, countries and most importantly he created money.

During this process of creating comfort for himself, man became money monger. Most of the people living on this earth started running for making money. In his pursuit to earn huge amount of money, he forget to be humane!!! In order to create this quality we must look at our behavior and our actions.

Nature has provided four basic instincts to all creatures of this world. These are lust, anger, attachment and greed. In addition to these instincts, human beings are given intellect to use them judicially and work for self realization. Now let us examine what is the condition vis-à-vis other animals in respect of these four basic instincts.

Lust:

Have you ever seen lust on a regular basis in any species of animals in spite of their males and females living together in completely naked conditions? Animals perform sexual activity for giving birth to a baby of respective species. Their sexual behavior is restricted to mating season and they perform this act only few times in a year.

On the contrary, human beings are overindulged in sexual activities. They perform this activity almost everyday or as much as they can. Their mating season is throughout the year, day and night. If he is not satisfied at home, he then goes for prostitution to satisfy his sexual drive. Animals do not indulge in sexual activity with their pregnant females. However, human beings are actively involved in sex with pregnant woman, which is considered physically, mentally and emotionally very harmful for the fetus. Human beings are interested to have sex even with their colleagues, friends, neighbors, known persons or strangers and sometimes with minor girls. Some people do not hesitate to commit crime of raping other for satisfaction of their sexual urge.

God has given you intellect to use it judicially and to discriminate between what is right and what is wrong and be humane.

Anger/Rage:

Anger is part of everyone’s life. You will also find anger in animals. They would be angry with you if you try to take its food or snatch away its child. In some species, they quarrel themselves over mating females. But their anger is momentarily. Animals forget their anger within short span of time.

However human beings anger is mostly for selfish gains and it sometimes lasts for the whole life. In anger, you treat other person as your enemy and try to harm him or sometimes kill him. You may find several cases where people kill others just for no reason or for small confrontation over petty issues. Anger further leads to hatred, jealousy and animosity. Anger also gives rise to several dreadful diseases.

Attachment:

Attachment to pleasure and ultimately to life is our inborn instinct. For livelihood attachment with certain worldly objects and persons is essential. You develop emotional bondage with certain objects or persons and want to remain attached to the same. Attachment is a positive sign. But excessive attachment to worldly objects or persons is considered an evil. It is as dangerous as anger, hatred and jealousy. Attachment with worldly objects sometimes leads to troubles.

It reminds me of a story, I read in my childhood. In some Indian villages during menace of monkeys that are causing damage to food products and harming children, they created a device to catch those monkeys. They made an earthen pitcher with a small hole. They put some roasted grams in this pitcher and placed near food. With the fragrance of roasted gram monkeys get attracted and put hand in this pitcher and hold gram and try to take out hand. But the hand is not coming out, as the hole of pitcher is such that when monkey holds gram in hand, it cannot come out. Now out of attachment to food monkey is not leaving gram and gets trapped and caught by villagers.

Thus attachment to worldly objects sometimes leads us to trouble. Excessive attachment leads to addiction. People addicted to negative habits of smoking, drinking alcohol, using drugs, addiction to sex, and overeating, excessive use of TV or computer leads to various ailments. But if you compare, attachment of animals is limited to food for their survival and to safety of their offspring. On the contrary, human beings are attached to worldly possessions. Some have attachment for variety of expensive cars and some are attached to ornaments or fashion accessories. There are people attached to various relationships and some are clinging to host of negative habits. Over attachment of people with money and worldly possessions is leading to various negativeness in society.

Greed:

Human being is a highly greedy species. Animals’ greed is limited to gathering food for now. They do not hoard food even for their next meal. However for human being, their greed is unlimited. They want to grab and hoard everything they can. They want to gather money not only for their entire life but also for the lives of their children and grand children.

Out of greed they perform several illegal and unlawful activities. They are involved in adulteration, taking bribe and unlawfully taking others money. They harm others and deceive others for their selfish gains. There is no end to the greed for several people.

These are four basic instincts of all creatures. These must be used for the welfare of the self. In fact, these are the gifts of God to you as you cannot live without these instincts. But these must be used judiciously and cautiously.

Overcome that negativeness with affirmations:

Repeat following affirmations.

“God corrects all those errors in me by which I have missed the appointment He has with me. God guides me with his counsel and afterwards receives me to glory.”

“I am now emptying my mind of all kinds of lust, anger, rage, hatred, greed and attachments and start living a happy and peaceful life. I am thankful.”

You must transform these energies and take them in upward direction rather than taking them down. Perform selfless activities, help others, be kind towards human being,, animals, plants and nature. All these creations belong to God. Do not harm them for selfish gains. Learn to practice following for developing humane qualities

Selflessness:

Human being is a social animal. And selflessness is one of the most ideal virtues of mankind. But if you look around, habit of selfishness is predominant among people all over the world. Almost every one of us wants to establish his world around the self. They are trying to satisfy their own feelings, desires and needs on priority basis. In addition, they want to grab more and more to hoard for future generations.

Selfishness is the main cause of several problems in this world. Confrontation and animosity leading to crime, broken homes, unhappiness and several other negativity are prevailing in this society.

Let us give time to think and ask ourselves as to why all those problems pertaining to our bad and strained relationships exist? Aren’t these because of my selfish behavior? And my habit of grabbing more and more of everything is causing trouble for several people of this world. Let us examine our behavior and ask the self, Am I selfish? Is my habit of selfishness is the cause of trouble for others in society? In case your answer is ‘yes’ to these questions, you must act now and make efforts to overcome this habit. Always remember you were not born with evil habits. All such habits are developed within you during your years of growth from childhood to present age.

This habit of selfishness is equally detrimental for you. Believe me you are not gaining anything out of this habit. You must get rid of the same at the earliest. The way to overcome this natural human tendency of selfishness is first to realize that you have capability to change this habit. After realization, you must generate a desire, a strong desire to discontinue this harmful habit. I appreciate that you have decided to bring a positive change in you from selfishness to selflessness. It is a very difficult decision but it is one of the most important decisions of your life. Mostly, people do not accept their selfish behavior. They are unable to realize they are selfish. In fact, every one of us is inflicted with this habit of selfishness. Only difference is degree of selfishness varies from person to person. Our efforts must be to reduce the degree of selfishness in us to an extent; it is not causing harm to others.

Now you need to continuously practice on developing selflessness. You will not be able to transform from being selfish to selfless overnight. This process takes a long time. To develop selflessness, you will develop habits of generosity, helping others, compassion, justice, righteousness and love. You will realize the power of gentle touch, a kind word, a listening ear, a pleasing smile, an honest compliment and a helping hand. These newly acquired habits are capable of bringing happiness in lives of many people around you. Reaching out to someone with gentle caring and sensitivity is a noble act of selflessness. You are not doing it for a profit or selfish gains. This act also helps you overcoming your pride and inflating your ego.

Till date, you were living in a fool’s paradise of self ego. Your vision is now expanding. In selflessness, you will be joyful with the accomplishments of others and in their happiness. You would now love to serve others. There will be positive development in your life as well. As you have sown love and happiness in others life, you will reap its benefits and level of happiness and contentment will increase in your life.

Repeat this affirmation several times a day to strengthen habit of selflessness in you.

“God is now filling my mind with thoughts of selflessness, attitude of co-operation and helping everyone whosoever needs my help. I am grateful.”

Be thankful:

Expressing thankfulness or gratitude is a noble way for people to appreciate what they have in their lives. In general, people don’t feel satisfied until their physical and material needs are met. They always want something new for them with this hope that it will make them happier. Gratitude is an example of selflessness. It is considered to be the master key that opens all doors of possibilities for you. When you are grateful, you don’t feel jealous and unkind.

Power of gratitude is an important aspect of your life. It helps you to attract happiness and abundance. Principle of gratitude works purely on scientific basis and it has been a proven fact. Gratitude is a powerful tool to transform your life. It connects us to our source of origin and also to infinite organizing power of the universe. Consistently developing a habit of focusing on expressing heartfelt gratitude attracts positive circumstances in your life. Your feelings of gratitude are reciprocated by law of universe and it brings abundance and provides you with money and worldly possessions.

Here is an affirmation for developing habit of gratitude in you.

“I am grateful for everyone those they have ever helped me, assisted me and co-operated me in my endeavors during journey of this life.”

Respect others:

We have been listening to this golden rule of life from our childhood, “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.” And this rule has been neglected by people at large. If you want others to respect you and treat you in proper way, you must learn to respect others at first and treat them properly. Treating people with respect makes your world a better place to live. Speaking kind words helps inspiring others and lifting their spirits. Do not insult people or make fun of them. Do not abuse them or ill treat them. Tolerance is a good corner stone on which we can build human relationships. Religious and any other form of intolerance leads chaos and unrest. Respecting others is the most important element in any successful long term relationship. By showing respect, listening to others, being helpful and compassionate towards others also helps establishing long term relationship and living in peace.

It is therefore imperative for everyone to develop this habit of respecting others, irrespective of their age, size, caste, color or financial status. Repeat following affirmation for strengthening this noble habit in you.

“By the grace of God and under the security of God’s love, I develop respect, regards and love for everyone that is respectful and loving. My mind is filled with respect and love for all creations of God. I am thankful.”

Practice honesty:

From early childhood, we have always been told, “Honesty is the best policy.” In fact, honesty really is the best policy. One needs to practice honesty at every level of life. Being honest doesn’t require a high level of self discipline. It is one of the most important ingredients of long term relationships with others. By practicing honesty in your life, it gets a lot easier for you and others start identifying your authenticity, integrity and steadfastness.

In case, you are a liar, keep an eye on your behavior. Observe yourself lying and think time and again about the self and ask you a question, “Am I doing favor to the self or anyone else by my habit of lying?” And try to seek an answer from within. You will find that your inner self is against your habit of being a liar.

Try to bring transparency in your behavior. Remove curtains between what you think and what you say to the self and to others. Some people have habit of saying something different and in mind they have altogether different thoughts. They do not speak what they think. Researchers tell us that 60 percent people speak one to two lies every ten minutes of conversation. There are people they have never been honest about anything in their entire life. They are often so sued to lying that they don’t even realize that they are doing so and are working against the law of universe.

Sometimes, you find yourself in an awkward situation, either knowingly or unknowingly. You do something wrong and later gather courage to admit to it. Your honesty at this point saves you from embarrassment and creating an ugly situation. Had you not accepted your mistake, that person would have got angrier and even more upset and situation would have been out of control.

Honesty provides basis of trust, intimacy and lasing love. You can fall in love with anyone without knowing honesty level of the person. But it would certainly be extremely be difficult to stay in love when you discover that the person you fallen in love is a dishonest person and is not unto your expectations.

Being honest is being humane. Practice honesty in all that you do and live guilt free and consistently repeat following affirmation in your mind.

“God is present in all areas of my life and He guides me now for my highest good and to remain totally honest in all that I do. I am thankful.”

Practice forgiveness:

With the process of evolution, human mind evolved to be the most intelligent. Over the period, it is becoming reactive. As a result people at large respond almost instantly to the words and actions of others without giving a thought to their words. Most people respond negatively and in an unfriendly manner. Mostly they do not think before speaking. Their response leads to hurtfulness, bitterness, anger, hatred, jealousy and revenge etc.

On the contrary there are people who respond positively to others actions and learn to practice forgiveness. Every one of us must develop habit of forgiveness. It is a tool that brings love, understanding, compassion, peace, happiness, kindness in you. It helps building healthier relationships with others. Compassion is one of the key ingredients of forgiveness. Develop compassion. If you want peace of mind, learn to forgive. Forgiveness is the most beautiful gift given to you by yourself. It is also considered the sweetest revenge you can take against anyone. You can know more on learning forgiveness.

Repeat following affirmation for developing attitude of forgiveness in you.

“I now lovingly forgive and forget everyone who has ever offended me, harmed me or treated me unfairly. I also seek forgiveness for all my offences from everyone, known and unknown. I am thankful.”

Thus you can be humane and develop such qualities which can help you truly living peacefully and happily.

Quotes for Thoughts

“One can not be just if one is not humane.”~Luc de Clapiers

“Man – a being in search of meaning.” ~Plato

“My first world is humanity. My second world is humanism. And, I live in the third world being merely a human.” ~ Santosh Kalwar

“The question is this: Is man an ape or an angel? I am on the side of the angels.” ~ Benjamin Disraeli